Courage & Fear Do Not Hold Hands in My Life, No Way! #CourageVsFear

The past two years have filled with the most intense learning experiences I have had so far in this lifetime of mine. I don’t need to spell each experience out for you, but I can say that I have certainly had my share. Each time I somehow mustered the courage to brush off the fear and move forward with my life. I was determined to wake up happy every day. I would tell myself a different reason each morning of why I was grateful, despite what was going on at the time. It worked for me…..

I want to talk a bit about courage today. It occurred to me this past week that I had put courage in a box and forgot to open that box when I needed it the most. I had a bit of a meltdown because I let a few things overwhelm me. Instead of facing them head on or taking the time to sit and look at the issue, I used that damn box to hide it in a feeble attempt to put it aside.

Which made things worse. Which gave me anxiety and stress. It came to a slow simmer and I decided I was not going to wait for the boiling point. I stopped at took a long hard look at what was bugging me.

I have this Pro & Con list for my clients, so you would think I would use it as well, right? Ha! Rarely! I wasn’t even using a list to work things out for myself.  It was time for me to pay attention to my feelings. Why was I upset? Why was I down? Why was I getting so agitated? What am I going to do about it?

I found that I needed help to open the box I had stored Courage in; I called friends to talk it out. Then, the list of what if’s was in order. I simply not made goals, not faced what was going on.  What if I did X now versus later? Better yet, why not now versus later? It is all up to me when I make decisions, right? If the waiting period produced stress, then waiting was not such a good idea.

In life, we don’t need others to tell us what to do when we truly already know in our hearts and in our minds. But it does help to talk things out; I learned that in my grief group, that telling your story helps work out the sadness. Often, help comes from talking it out with a good friend(s); I had this luxury last week.

It is important to look at our surroundings, at our feelings, at our needs and wants. The answer is usually in our hearts if we listen.

Buddha said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

I learned something about myself that I lost sight of. I needed to stop and just breathe. It all came to me in that present moment.

PS: that box is now holding Fear where it belongs….

#lifelesson #courage #makedecisionsnow #letgooffear